About 15,000 fans showed up Saturday to Kyle Field for the third such game under coach Mike Sherman, who pointed to the play of running back Cyrus Gray, left tackle Luke Joeckel and linebacker Garrick Williams, among others, as a few of the highlights from the glorified scrimmage.

Joeckel should still be in high school, but graduated early from Arlington High to get started on his college credits — and take part in spring drills.

“He’s unflappable,” Sherman said Saturday of Joeckel. “He’s 6 foot 6 and 305 pounds and a great athlete. … I hate to talk like this about a dang freshman — I’m entitled to change my opinion, right? But if we were playing tomorrow, he’d be my starting left tackle.”

Sherman said one of the best things to come from Saturday is that it was injury free.

I also attended athletic director Bill Byrne’s state of the department address Saturday morning in the indoor track complex, and he told a crowd of about 200 this about any rumors of A&M leaving the Big 12 for another conference:

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to think about going anywhere.”

Byrne said the idea of moving to the Pacific 10 or Big Ten conferences doesn’t make sense from a travel standpoint.

“It’s tough enough to come from Lubbock or Ames, Iowa,” he said, adding that adding four to six hours on a plane trip “makes no sense for the welfare of the student-athlete.”

“It’s much smarter staying exactly where we are,” he said.

Much more to come from the spring game and Byrne’s talk — but now it’s time to cover Texas at A&M baseball from Olsen Field (and get the football game story written for the newspaper before baseball cranks up!)